1915
Reading edition
There is something ludicrous about a callow young fool like myself standing up to preach a sermon to these good folks. I talk wisely about life and know little about life’s problems. I tell them of the need of sacrifice, although most of them could tell me something about what that really means. I preached a sermon the other day on “The Involuntary Cross,” using the text of Simon the Cyrene bearing the cross of Jesus. A good woman, a little bolder than the rest, asked me in going out whether I had borne many crosses. I think I know a little more about that than I would be willing to confess to her or to the congregation, but her question was justified.
Many of the people insist that they can’t understand how a man so young as I could possibly be a preacher. Since I am twenty-three their reaction to my youth simply means that they find something incompatible even between the ripe age of twenty-three and the kind of seasoned wisdom which they expect from the pulpit. “Let no one despise thy youth,” said Paul to Timothy; but I doubt whether that advice stopped any of the old saints from wagging their heads. I found it hard the first few months to wear a pulpit gown. Now I am getting accustomed to it. At first I felt too much like a priest in it, and I abhor priestliness. I have become reconciled to it partly as a simple matter of habit, but I imagine that I am also beginning to like the gown as a kind of symbol of authority. It gives me the feeling that I am speaking not altogether in my own name and out of my own experience but by the authority of the experience of many Christian centuries.
Difficult as the pulpit job is, it is easier than the work in the organizations of the congregation. Where did anyone ever learn in a seminary how to conduct or help with a Ladies Aid meeting? I am glad that mother has come to live with me and will take care of that part of the job. It is easier to speak sagely from the pulpit than to act wisely in the detailed tasks of the parish. A young preacher would do well to be heard more than he is seen.